Roughneck by Jim Thompson (Mysterious Press – 1989)

Where Bad Boy took you to the brink of a wild, bawdy life, Roughneck takes you past the edge and into the vortex of a man’s poverty, pain, and passion. Master suspense writer Jim Thompson continues the tale of his life: from the wastelands of Depression-era Nebraska to the oil fields of west Texas to the rough-and-tumble of the New York publishing racket.

Jim Thompson rides the freights, swindles his way to temporary fortunes, romps with teenaged hookers, brawls with cracker pimps, guzzles white lightning, joins Indians in bizarre tribe rituals, and fights the massive bureaucracy of Roosevelt’s WPA. This is another twenty years ripped straight from the guts of wild experience, as only a man like Jim Thompson could tell it.

Another of Thompson’s kinda-sorta-autobiographical sketches. Whether you give a rat’s behind about the author or not, it’s entertaining.